One very interesting experience I had witnessed was in the process of creating the social media post. My group partner is women and myself a man, so when we created our own drafts for the project we noticed that both of our drafts were seemingly too “girly” and too “manly”. Mine had more shots of the environment, with weather, and darker colours; while hers was full of bright vibrant colours. We both also had similar thoughts so when we shared how we were feeling it made us laugh and also think about what constitutes as “manly” and “girly”, we opted for a third opinion and our thoughts were confirmed. We also expressed we were worried that choosing something leaning to either side might take away from the message trying to be portrayed so ultimately we decided on a more neutral design that took our favourite aspects of each design into consideration.
We had a discussion about what and who decides what designs fall into either category, and it was eye opening as to how accustomed we have become to just assuming designs (and many other things) fall into gendered categories. It made us think about what else we could just be gendering without really thinking about it.
If you’re reading this, look around the space you’re in and think about how the space feels gendered. And ask why?